Diana Taurasi can be salty and cynical. She’s allergic to hype. Her candor is uncompromised.
These traits make her original, lovable, a Valley favorite and occasional marketing headache for the WNBA.
CHICAGO – Suns interim head coach Lindsey Hunter was first on Ryan McDonough’s interview list, but it would be shocking if Hunter wound up in that order when the new Suns general manager picks his first head coach.
Beyond Hunter’s Wednesday interview in Chicago, the Suns’ target group includes experienced assistant head coaches, although some head college coaches and a former NBA coach are getting consideration, too.
Scottsdale Notre Dame first baseman Nick Affronti has accepted the fact that his college recruitment isn’t going as well as he’d like. Fresh off winning a Division II state title and batting .462 for the season, the 6-foot-2, 217-pound senior knows he’s good enough to be playing major college baseball.
He just doesn’t know why no one else seems to agree. Coaches give him positive reviews, but don’t follow up with offers.
Jeremy Kellem used to believe he would never get beat by a receiver.
Then, he stepped into an Arena Football League game last season.
As I reflect upon the just completed high school sports season, it’s not the games, the championships or the remarkable individual performances that first come to mind.
It’s the tears. It’s always the tears.
Late in the 2011 season, Eric Hinske, playing left field for the Atlanta Braves, leaped in the air, stretched his glove over the wall and robbed St. Louis slugger Matt Holliday of a home run.
“Don’t ask me how, but I did,” said Hinske, Diamondbacks utility player and pinch-hitter. “It was a legit over-the-fence-pull-it-back.”
The Diamondbacks have had the best defense in baseball this season but they committed two errors in Wednesday’s 5-3 victory over the Atlanta Braves and have had errors in four of their past six games after only two errors in the previous 18 games.
“We made a couple of foolish errors today. We’re going to clean that up,” manager Kirk Gibson said.
Balls aren’t flying out of Packard Stadim anywhere near like they were a few years ago in the pre-regulated bat era.
But Arizona State unexpectedly leads the Pac-12 in homers and is coming up with some of them at clutch moments. Consider that just this month, the Sun Devils:
Arizona State didn’t spot Texas Tech a five-run lead simply to spice up a non-conference baseball game Wednesday night.
The game meant too much for No. 15 ASU, fighting to be one of 16 NCAA regional hosts. Not to mention that Texas Tech knocked off the Sun Devils 8-7 in Lubbock on March 19.
The Phoenix City Council on Wednesday voted 8-1 to move forward with a plan to outsource maintenance and concessions of five of its financially troubled public golf courses to a private contractor.
Under the plan, Phoenix officials also will hire a consultant to help the courses run more efficiently. However, the city will continue staffing the pro shops at those golf courses and maintain control of setting greens fees and deciding who has priority to use the municipal golf courses.
The “skyhook” helped basketball Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar score 38,387 points, the most in NBA history. It’s a move the Mercury’s 6-foot-8 rookie Brittney Griner hopes to learn.
That process started on Wednesday. Abdul-Jabbar was on hand then to watch Griner and the Mercury practice at US Airways Center. After talking to the team and answering questions, he had a 15-minute 1-on-1 session with Griner; an introductory course to the iconic skyhook.
Arizona State’s Amber Freeman was named the Pac-12 Softball Player of the Year on Wednesday.
Freeman also was a first team All-Pac-12 selection alongside teammates Dallas Escobedo and Cheyenne Coyle.
Arizona State’s Amber Freeman was named the Pac-12 Softball Player of the Year on Wednesday.
Freeman also was a first team All-Pac-12 selection alongside teammates Dallas Escobedo and Cheyenne Coyle.
For all the work on the field that led the Arizona State softball team to claim the No. 5 national seed in the playoffs this season, it possesses a clear advantage in one other area: the dugout.
Coach Clint Myers’ efforts don’t show up in the daily stat sheet, but the numbers still tell an impressive story. Since taking over before the 2006 season, Myers has gone 422-100 with the Sun Devils, an .808 winning percentage.
BALTIMORE — Kentucky Derby winner Orb drew the No. 1 starting gate position in Wednesday’s draw for Saturday’s 138th running of the Preakness, which will have a nine-horse field.
Orb’s spot on the inside rail is typically not coveted, but, with the field size, traffic congestion may not be an issue. Trained by Hall of Famer Shug McGaughey, Orb still was installed as an even money favorite to win on the morning line.
CHICAGO — This week, the NBA’s top 61 draft prospects have assembled here for the Suns and other teams to watch how they measure up in drills, drill with questions and eliminate questions with a watch and measurement.
The event, hosted at Attack Athletics gym, will help clear up the Suns’ draft picture now that General Manager Ryan McDonough and his inherited scouts have worked together for a week on what they studied separately in this draft for years. Tuesday’s draft lottery will do more for that picture, telling the Suns where they will pick between Nos. 1 and 7, while this combine starts the realistic process of what to do if the Suns are not in the top three.
At least the Rattlers know that Allstate Arena will open its doors Sunday afternoon for their Arena Football League game at the Chicago Rush.
AFL Commissioner Jerry Kurz promised that the Rush would play out their scheduled games, despite the owner, David Staral Jr., being removed by the league for having a $50,000 check to rent the arena bounce a few weeks ago.
We’re pretty sure new Suns General Manager Ryan McDonough has been busy lately trying to find the team’s next head coach.
That probably explains why he hasn’t called us to ask our opinion. No problem. We’ll save him the phone call and list our top five candidates here. The research and analysis is free. He can thank us later.
Heath Bell said he spent far too much time looking back and tracing over everything that went wrong last season during his short time with the Miami Marlins.It was so bad he told himself he wasn’t going to talk about it this week if anybody asked. What’s done is done, he said. Besides, why relive a nightmare?
Heath Bell said he spent far too much time looking back and tracing over everything that went wrong last season during his short time with the Miami Marlins.It was so bad he told himself he wasn’t going to talk about it this week if anybody asked. What’s done is done, he said. Besides, why relive a nightmare?
You’re not sure how to approach Brian Fischer, so you apologize before you ask what the last three weeks of his life have been like.
“It’s certainly not a stupid question,” Fischer responds gracefully. “I don’t know. It’s been a very emotional month for me. I have my days. I’m trying to put it all in perspective. Baseball, my family, all that. It changes.”
Larry Fitzgerald is tired. Not of playing football. Not of donating his time to charity.
Larry Fitzgerald is tired of talking about last season. And the one before that. And the one before that.
The New York Times dazzled us this week with an interactive graphic illustrating the amount of money teams spend per day paying players on the disabled list.
The graphic showed the amount for each team ticking ever upward, with some clubs — namely the Yankees ($23,041 an hour) and the Dodgers ($15,831) — seeing their totals escalate more quickly than others.
Scottsdale Desert Mountain senior David Greer was restless all day Tuesday leading up to his team’s showdown against defending state champ Scottsdale Chaparral in the Division I baseball state title game. Several times, he simply had to pace around instead of focus on schoolwork.
“I was getting so antsy,” Greer said. “I told my teachers, ‘I’m really sorry for this, but I can’t sit down.’ ”
Tuesday marked Scottsdale Notre Dame’s fourth title game appearance in the past six years.
The three previous contests ended in heartbreak for the No. 3 seed, which has never been better than second best.
